this conversation had resumed their former
positions within the tent, looked at each other with a queer look of
surprise, as if somewhat disconcerted at what they now heard. They then
entered into discourse with each other in the same strange tongue which
had already puzzled me. At length the man looked me in the face, and
said, somewhat hesitatingly, "so you are not one of them there, after
all?"

_Myself_. One of them there? I don't know what you mean.

_Man_. Why, we have been thinking you were a goblin--a devilkin!
However, I see how it is: you are a sap-engro, a chap who catches snakes,
and plays tricks with them! Well, it comes very nearly to the same
thing; and if you please to list with us, and bear us pleasant company,
we shall be glad of you. I'd take my oath upon it that we might make a
mort of money by you and that sap, and the tricks it could do; and, as
you seem fly to everything, I shouldn't wonder if you would make a prime
hand at telling fortunes.

"I shouldn't wonder," said I.

_Man_. Of course. And you might still be our God Almighty, or at any
rate our clergyman, so you should live in a tilted cart by yourself and
say prayers to us night and morning--to wifelkin here, and all our
family; there's plenty of us when we are all together; as I said before,
you seem fly, I shouldn't wonder if you could read.

"Oh, yes!" said I, "I can read;" and, eager to display my
accomplishments, I took my book out of my pocket, and opening it at
random, proceeded to read how a certain man whilst wandering about a
certain solitary island, entered a cave, the mouth of which was overgrown
with brushwood, and how he was nearly frightened to death in that cave by
something which he saw.

"That will do," said the man; "that's the kind of prayers for me and my
family, ar'n't they, wifelkin? I never heard more delicate prayers in
all my life! Why, they beat the rubricals hollow!--and here comes my son
Jasper. {34} I say, Jasper, here's a young sap-engro that can read, and
is more fly than yourself. Shake hands with him; I wish ye to be two
brothers."

With a swift but stealthy pace Jasper came towards us from the farther
part of the lane; on reaching the tent he stood still, and looked fixedly
upon me as I sat upon the stool; I looked fixedly upon him. A queer look
had Jasper; he was a lad of some twelve or thirteen years, with long
arms, unlike the singular being who called himself his father; his
compl